One of the first
video clips that I watched after getting to know the existence of the TED site
(www.ted.com) was "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity." (It
was not hard to find the Ken Robinson speech, actually, as all I had to do was
click the "Most Viewed" category in the left column.)
As a person who
have great interest in education and is actually experiencing the current South
Korean education, there were many parts throughout the presentation that impressed
me.
One of the
phrases that literally “spoke to the heart” was "If you think of it, the
whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of
university entrance." Strangely, this idea seemed to perfectly fit the
condition of South Korea. Every type of education that I receive seems to be a
series of procedures which ultimately aims for college (or university)
entrance. Especially for private education centers, (so-called “hagwon” here in
Korea) even for those subjected towards elementary school students, their sole
and ultimate objective and reason for existence seems to be a university
entrance.
Also, his saying
that “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with something
original” really struck to me. The thing in South Korea is that almost nobody
in the class is “prepared to be wrong.” Sometimes, the atmosphere even seems to
be hindering a certainbeing from being “prepared to be wrong.” Almost every
class is simply “dead” and severely lacks voluntary participation of students.
And it seems barely possible to expect a single piece of “creativity” being
drawn from such a depressed class.
However, one
question came to my mind: Are art and music classes that Sir Ken Robinson is
considering to be "problematic to be neglected" really helpful in
nurturing students' creativity? Throughout the lecture, Sir Ken Robinson seemed
to believe that solving math and science problems is not a good way to attain
creativity compared to art classes and music classes. Here, I thought it was
worthwhile to cast questions on this ruling premise, as there are many ways in
which math or science could be used to develop creativity of a person. Also,
there could be individual differences on the means that would be the best in
nurturing creativity, and simply asking for increase in the art classes without
considering the difference in students might not be the best idea.
Nevertheless, I
strongly agreed with the idea that there is a great imbalance on the importance
of subjects dealt in the school, and this could severely damage the development
of students' creativity. To be honest, I didn’t know who Ken Robinson before
seeing this video clip. However, he now is one of my best public speakers, and
I’m planning to search for his other public speeches given to the public in the
boundary of education.
Seungmin, I really agree with the fact that a lot of the school nowadays are aimed towards the entrance of Universities. However, the school is made up of students, thus, I am saying that it is the students who make it seem so. Yes, it is true that the Korean mindset is really based off of getting into good colleges or universities. Recently as I was walking through the track field of our school, I met a middle school student parent who had started asking me questions about the percentage of colleges that particular students go to. But the people to change that mindset itself are the students! It seems to me as if the parents are trying to forge their children's own pathways instead of helping their children forge their own pathways, because the children themselves do not know what they want to do yet. In my case, despite the fact that I had Korean parents, my parents did not forge my own path, but they had aided me in forging my own path; thus,I am telling you to create your own path! In the case of students who have lost their creativity it is because they are only working for their college applications, but I say they should be looking at the bigger picture! If one has their own motives, their creativity will never go away.
ReplyDeleteAlso on note to "being prepared to be wrong", I totally agree with this. However, when being prepared to be wrong, one has to accept the fact that he has many flaws. Taking the mindset of accepting failures itself is a mindset where they are prepared about being wrong because they already know that they will fail at times!
Thanks so much for sharing your vision, Dennis Cho! Yes, I agree to your idea that it is the students' job to change their minds... And I cannot agree more about your thinking on parents "forging" the way the students "ought to" live. Unfortunately, I seem to be one of those people who have walked on the "forged paths" that my parents have paved for me. I mean, even now, I'm being skeptical whether if it were me who wanted to go to KMLA or was it my mom...
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that almost all Asian, and especially Korean moms have kind of an urge about their daughters and sons to be better than anybody else in their schools. I mean, almost every parents have this kind of desire, but it is particularly strong here in Korea. And I think this kind of enthusiasm for educating children is not harmful only when the children themselves are given the choice on what they REALLY want. But that's not the case in South Korea. Parents are so concerned that their children might not choose a road that is "not supposed to be chosen."
And I also think that you're right in saying that one should first admit that he has a lot of wrongs. But I think the educators themselves in South Korea better change too, 'cause they kind of form an atmosphere in the class implying that "BEING WRONG IS BEING BAD," which totally hinders the development of creativity as a whole.
Wow - really good debates on Samuel's blog. I hope I see this on other blogs as well (maybe Dennis can try and out-comment me).
ReplyDeleteKorea is an amazing country with amazing determination and results to show for it. Without the education obsession this couldn't have happened. But now that the economic miracle has stabilized (arguable), we have to ask does Korean education achieve its goals and satisfy the needs for most students as individuals? Probably not, because if it did, we wouldn't have every other street corner featuring a chain hakwon. I personally think education has become an industry that suffers from accepted monopolies and racketeering. Think of what would happen in Korea if standardized tests went out the window. Thousands of people would be put out of work, millions of books would remain in warehouses, moms would have to find other ways for children to compete, and EBS would have to cancel 100's of hours of airtime. Children become students, students become dollar signs, and those dollar signs perpetuate this never-ending cycle of education obsession - which is NOT "for the sake of learning itself." ;)
However, I'd choose Korea's conundrum over that of America's any day. I hate to say it, but hakwons are better places to be than the back alley behind 7-11 or in basement playing video games. You guys are the future leaders, and it's good to see this kind of discourse.